29 January 2010

I recently sat through the excellent BBC 1985 TV show Edge of Darkness, yep, if it sounds familiar it's because it's the one which Hollywood has just remade as a feature film with Mel Gibson and Ray Winstone in, albeit by the original Director Martin Campbell. The original was a six parter and being just five when it was first aired, my interests lied solely with the Rancor monster and He Man, it passed me by.I got the dvd for a fiver and watched them back to back each night, I have to say this highly acclaimed Eco paranoid espionage drama was right up there, thought provoking they say, well that explains why it's been on my mind since watching. They don't really make 'em like they used to eh?Directed by Martin Campbell and written by Troy Kennedy Martin, EoD is based around disturbed detective Ronnie Craven played superbly by the former Shakespearean actor, the late Bob Peck trying to find the real reason behind his environmentalist daughter's (Joanne Whalley) apparent 'accidental' murder the assailant was aiming for father not daughter. Or was he?His investigations unravel onto a dodgy path of corrupt government and coincidental corporate cover-ups via the CIA and MI5 leading to a personal investigation of a top secret nuclear plant. Exposing secret after secret and a potentially earth threatening fat cat Nuclear industry. With a great cast of characters including Joe Don Baker as the cowboy golf loving CIA agent Jedburgh.This remains a highly thought out and great bit of telly, and one which would be too easy to give away if you hadn't yet seen. Award winning at the time, this very influential drama is from a time when Blighty was very concerned with the worlds infatuation with all things nuclear, a genuine dodgy ground the overwhelming majority of us wished we would not go there.Being the fucking geek that I am, I also noticed a bit of 'gear' in there too, including an original Fjällräven coat many moons before it 'exploded'around this neck of the woods as a 'new' thing.aside from the famous signature checks of Burberry and Aquascutum sported by those protectors of the realm, I also noticed a Benetton Rugby shirt, I admit I'm clutching at straws now, but it's too late I've already uploaded it.During the height of the Second Cold War with the second wave of The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) we could be forgiven for going a little bit potty.Around the same time we had the equally hard hitting TV drama Threads - written by 'Kes' scribe Barry Hines, and filmed in and around Sheffield, this was a grim account of the effects of nuclear war on a city before during and after and the personal crisis from a family's perspective. Reece Dinsdale of Shadwell Town 'top table' fame led the way in that one."In a few years I'll over come this terror and be a shagging Gail Platt."We also were presented with the most bleak and depressing cartoon you could ever cast your eyes one, forget Watership Down or Waltz with Bashir, Raymond Briggs' Where the Wind Blows was both brilliant and chilling, nay quite upsetting.A potential reality, the total opposite of his lovely fantasy film The Snowman.And let's not forget those eerily creepy advertising campaigns from Protect and Survive, even hardore hippy Neil from The Young One's got in on the act of that one and painted himself white.Looking at the adverts now, I'm shitting myself, I cannot imagine my state of fear had I been this age now, I do dwell on things though, but dwell I would have, if my telly's telling me to hide under a table to avoid the on-coming blast, or if I was caught short whilst out, a bloody bridge. Not to mention shitting in a home made commode.

Seriously, if the best piece of advice my government could give me during the aftermath of a nuclear blast,is to hide under a bridge, I might aswell slit my wrists right now.

You can YouTube these horrendous pieces of propaganda but don't watch them before bed or they will put the willies up you.

So, yeah. Watch Edge of Darkness if you're not already familiar with it.